Friday Jan 07, 2011

Open Channel

When we come to realize that in most cases, we are the impediment to whatever the issue or circumstance; this is awareness and taking responsibility before blaming others.

Here’s an example about intuition that makes the point.

A while back when I had decided to change my dial-up connection to the Internet to a much faster Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) connection, I encountered a situation that is directly analogous to intuition. DSL is a type of telephone line that is a fixed end-to-end connection, a technology that is always on—like intuition.

I received my new DSL modem and the instructions. After following all the steps, I couldnt connect to the Internet. I reread the instructions to make sure everything was set up correctly, but the modem refused to connect. I called my Internet Service Provider (ISP) for help. The technical support person had his checklist for isolating connection issues. I spent many hours disconnecting all my phone jacks and tracing all my phone lines to see whether there was a break or loose connection somewhere along the lines.

Everything seemed to be okay.

Finally, the tech person told me it was probably the fault of my local phone company, the one providing my DSL connection. After many more wasted hours going over my inability to connect problem with my phone company, they assured me that my line was live.

However, the modem, despite its activity lights flashing on and off, would still not connect. I let the problem go and went back to painting. The next day I called my ISP again and asked to speak with a support supervisor. As it turned out, they had shipped the wrong type of DSL modem to me and to, no doubt, thousands of other customers.

Although information from the Internet was streaming through the phone line, no matter how on my DSL connection was, the wrong modem (receiver/sender) would keep me off line forever. Of course, when the right DSL modem arrived a few days later, I connected to the Internet instantly. Everything had been in place all along awaiting the right piece of hardware.